Trace Ideals and Centers of Endomorphism Rings of Modules over Commutative Rings

Let $R$ be a commutative Noetherian ring and $M$ a finitely generated $R$-module. Under various hypotheses, it is proved that the center of $\mbox{End}_R(M)$ coincides with the endomorphism ring of the trace ideal of $M$. These results are exploited to establish results for balanced and rigid modules, and to settle certain cases of a conjecture of Huneke and Wiegand.